


We Watch the Stars

by spacehopper



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dishonored fushion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-17 12:53:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14832641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/pseuds/spacehopper
Summary: Three books, a man, and an ancient monster. And Martin watches it all.





	We Watch the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [track_04](https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/gifts).



Martin knocked on Michael Crew’s door, then reread his crumpled notes. _Ports of Call, A Reflection on My Journey to the Pandyssian Continent, We Watch the Stars,_ and below that an address. This address, he was sure of it. But when he’d rung the buzzer, there’d been no answer. And now he stood in front of the door after following another resident up the rickety stairs to this flat, and all he heard was silence. 

His phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket.

_Going to Hounds Pit. See you there?_

And then below it:

_It’s Fugue Feast. He’s not going to be in._

Martin shoved the phone back into his pocket, and raised his hand again, mouth thinning with determination. Jon had still been working when he’d left the Archives, rifling through a tottering pile of statements. They had to find the knife. Michael’s statement had made that clearer than ever. And if they were going to find it, they needed to follow every lead they had. 

So Martin knocked again.

He ignored the vibration between his fingers, staring at the handle as if intent alone would make it turn. But the door remained stubbornly closed. He slumped against the wall, wrapping his hands around the phone. It buzzed again. Maybe he should just go out with Melanie and Basira. He was always trying to convince Jon to work less. He could even stop by the Institute, try and drag him along.

A faint music filtered through the door, low and hollow. Something weird, old. Not one Martin had heard before. But Fugue Feast did inspire strange practices. They were always swamped with statements in the days after. Martin knocked again. If music had started, it meant Michael Crew was likely there. And from the faint, whirring undertone, it sounded like it was being played on an audiograph, which meant it couldn’t have been automated. Martin put his hand on the knob, twisting—

It opened, and he stumbled inside.

The room was dark and empty. The music was louder now, high and eerie singing. An old folk song, but sung in a way that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It seemed to be coming from another room, and it wasn’t the music Martin was here for, so he turned his attention to his surroundings. On the table lay a book, binding battered and stained by water and age. He took a step forward, and the floorboards groaned beneath his feet. The song grew louder. _Eat them of frost, eat them of snow._

“Can I help you?”

Martin froze, hand hovering over the book. Standing in the door was a man with light fringe falling into pale blue eyes. And he was smiling at Martin, which was a strange thing to do when someone had just broken into your flat. 

But then it was Fugue Feast. So instead of apologizing, Martin asked, “Are you Michael Crew?”

His smile widened. “I prefer Mike. And you are?”

“Martin.” His eyes trailed over the book, but the shining letters on the spine were too worn to read. “What is this music? I’ve never heard anything quite like it.

“Interesting, isn’t it? I picked it up in a musty little antique shop near the old Brigmore Manor.”

He crossed the room to the table, bending down to pick up the book. A strange, spiraling scar peaked out of the neck of his shirt. Martin craned his neck, trying to see more. It reminded of something, a pattern he’d seen before. He tried to inch closer, but before he could, the fabric of Mike’s collar had slid back into place, obscuring it. 

“I like to collect old, forgotten things.” He ran a hand over the book’s spine, then slid it into a bookcase. “Would you like some tea? Something stronger?”

“No, tea is—tea’s fine. I like tea.”

Very smooth. He was definitely going to get the information he wanted with this sort of finesse. But sometimes it just took a little politeness and some pigheaded determination. So Martin sat on the sofa and watched Mike head into the kitchen, putting the kettle on and pulling out a box of Boyle’s Finest. 

While Mike busied himself, Martin took his chance to give the flat a closer look. It was a strange combination of sparse and eclectic. The table before him was one of the cheap Tyvian ones you had to assemble yourself, and the sofa he sat on was threadbare, but clean and serviceable. On the wall in front of him, a strange painting hung, dark and shifting shapes of suspended rubble and a whale swimming among them. The far side of the room held a bookshelf, which contained a number of older items like the book from the table, interspersed with brightly colored travel guides. 

“Do you take milk? Sugar?” Mike called from the kitchen.

“Black is fine.” In truth he preferred both, but he didn’t want to be a bother, not when he was intruding on the man’s home. Mike walked back over to the table, two cups in his hands. He held one out to Martin, who took it, before sitting across from him in a chair that matched the sofa.

“You like to travel?” Mike’s eyes widened, and Martin winced. Why was he trying for awkward small talk? But it weird, to just start out asking if he might have a cursed book in his collection. 

“I do when I can.” He took a sip of tea, then set it on the table, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “Tell me, Martin. Why are you here?” In the dim light of the room his pupils had dilated, his eyes black pools surrounded by a thin blue line.

“You bought a book.” The words tumbled out before he can stop himself, slapping a hand over his mouth. So much for approaching it cautiously.

“I buy a lot of books.” Mike laughed quietly, nodding at the shelves. “Was there one in particular you had in mind?”

“Ports of Call. An old travel book, but I work for a—collector—who’s interested in an original copy.” 

Mike raised an eyebrow, but otherwise made no comment. He knew Martin was lying, Martin had always been terrible at lying. This was why they needed Tim, he knew how to handle this kind of situation. He’d have Mike eating out of the palm of his hand. Possibly literally, if Mike was into that sort of thing. But Tim wouldn’t do this kind of work anymore. So it was up to Martin, whether he liked it or not. 

“May I show you something?” Mike said as he stood, as if there was no question Martin wouldn’t agree. And he was right. He had Martin at his mercy. 

As he followed Mike down a narrow hallway, he felt the brush of a hand against the small of his back, and shivered. This was the sort of thing his mum had alway warned him about. But he knew now there were far worse things in the world than Mike Crew. Or at least he hoped Mike Crew wasn’t one of those who’d been—changed—by the Void.

But Mike showed no signs of bloodflies or rats or anything else uncanny as he gently guided Martin into a small room at the far end of the hall. In front of them was a small table, covered in swathes of blue and gold fabric and topped with a eerie stack of bones. And in the center rested a particularly large piece of bone, carved with a spidering black rune. The room felt chill, and the shrine, and it was a shrine, looked unreal in the wavering candlelight. Martin stared, and the bones seemed to shiver.

“I found a painting depicting a shrine like this.” Martin started as Mike spoke, but he didn’t look away from the shrine. He couldn’t. “It was how people used to contact the Outsider. Or at least how they tried. It only ever worked for a few.” He stepped beside Martin, finger tracing the edge of the fabric. Martin wanted to reach out, tell him not to touch. That it was dangerous. That he didn’t want to talk to the twisted creature that lived inside the Void.

He wanted to touch it himself.

“But the Outsider’s gone. He hasn’t spoken since 1853. Or at least not from the Void.” Some people still believed, of course. And others said he’d never been real. But Martin had seen the oldest of the collected statements, from before the Institute had been founded. The Outsider had been real, had spoken to a chosen few. And then one day, he’d just vanished. Most people didn’t know that, but Mike sounded so certain of what he said. Martin wanted to ask if he knew what waited there now, but before he could, Mike wrapped his hand around Martin’s.

“Do you want to see it?” He met Martin’s eyes. Martin’s stomach dropped. 

“See—see what?” Mike’s hand was terribly cold.

“The Void, Martin. I normally wouldn’t bring you along, but it’s Fugue Feast, and here you are. I was going to go alone, but it seems fitting.” His lips curved. “And don’t you want to know?”

It was ridiculous. There was no way Mike could access the Void. It certainly wasn’t impossible, he’d read the statements. And seen the way Jon had shook, after coming out of the tunnels. But someone like Mike—he couldn’t.

“I want to know.” The words rattled in his throat and dropped from his lips like bones. Mike guided his hand, pressing it against the offerings on the table. And then—

The world exploded. 

Swirling black and blue and the echoing song of whales, and the feeling of falling, plunging into something both ocean and sky, and neither. Mike was holding his hand, fingers cutting into flesh. All Martin could do was scream but Mike—

Mike was laughing.

***

Martin plunged towards ground that didn’t exist, in a Void he wished were featureless, but which was instead filled with eerie echoes of the real world. He saw the Institute, saw Jon caught in a labyrinth made of spiraling vines, and he tried to scream, but he didn’t have the voice for it.

“You’re not falling.” The words resonated strangely in his ears, like Mike hadn’t really said them. He wanted to shout back, cry out for help, but he couldn’t breathe. “Stop.” A command, and Martin—

Stopped.

His feet slammed into rippling black stone, and he tumbled to his knees, jarring his arms as he put them out to steady himself. He was panting, gasping for air that shouldn’t exist here.

“Where are we?” Breathless, high, and too quiet for Mike to hear, but he answered anyway.

“The Void, Martin. I told you. I know it can be a bit of a shock, the first time you see it.” 

Martin continued to stare at the stone. If he didn’t look up, maybe he could pretend this wasn’t happening. He’d done that sometimes, those long days in his flat, the sound of bloodflies at his door. Just stared at a wall, eyes tracing the peeling wallpaper, and pretending that was the only thing there was. 

“Come see.” A hand on his shoulder, tugging him to his feet, and Martin was powerless to resist. He closed his eyes, trying to shut it out. He was shaking, he realized, as Mike put an arm around his waist, ushering him forward. Then he felt lips brush the shell of his ear. “Look, Martin.”

He opened his eyes.

Before him massive whales, like he’d only ever seen in paintings, swimming between floating rocks and the ruins of cars and buildings and ships. One mass drifted closer, and on it he saw a broken gazebo, which wavered before his eyes into a shining tower, like something out of a sci-fi film. 

“Isn’t it marvelous?” Mike was staring into the Void with such longing Martin felt his own chest ache. 

“How did you find it?”

“I was running.” He glanced over his shoulder then, like whatever it was he was afraid of could follow him here. “But we should be safe tonight.”

“Safe from what?” 

“Those who saw too much.” Mike took a step closer, placing a hand on Martin’s cheek. “Close your eyes.”

Martin closed his eyes.

The press of lips against his wasn’t a shock. But how cold Mike’s lips were, how breathless it left him—it didn’t seem natural. But then, if this was the Void, if Mike could go here with a simple shrine of bone, well. Mike wasn’t natural either, was he? Martin’s heart thundered in his chest, but he didn’t pull away. As terrifying as this was, there was something almost peaceful about it. The vast, empty, undying expanse, the cold lips on his, cold fingers under his shirt, tracing sparks up his spine. He shivered, and Mike pulled him closer.

Then they were falling again.

This time Martin didn’t scream, just buried his face in Mike’s shoulder as the nothing rushed around them. He knew, somehow, that they wouldn’t fall forever. That Mike had a goal in mind. And for now, it was almost nice. Wasn’t Fugue Feast all about breaking the Strictures? Not that Martin had ever been much of a believer. Few were these days. Even his mum had only paid the barest lip service, giving a bit of money to the fail old Overseer who muttered a curse as they passed. And yet it excited him still. To be here, doing this. He only hoped that it helped.

As suddenly as it had began, they were on solid ground again. This time it was yielding, and when Martin opened his eyes, he gasped. A canopy of tangled vines surrounded them, and before him was a bed quilted with midnight. He took a step towards it, but was stopped by a hand on his arm.

“Whatever else I may be, I like to think I’m a gentleman. If you want to leave now, you still can. I’ll take you back, and that will be the end of it.” He met Mike’s eyes. He didn’t think Mike was lying. But the end of it? The book—

“What if I stay?” 

“You never know quite what you’ll find here.” He brushed a thumb over Martin’s lips, and Martin’s tongue darted out, caressing the pad. He felt himself flush, but from Mike’s small gasp, it hadn’t gone unappreciated. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Mike said, slightly breathless. The world seemed to shift around them, and then Mike was pressing him against the bed, hands curved around his wrist, lips mouthing down his throat. Martin bucked against him, not even caring how ridiculous he must look. Who was here to see, after all? They were utterly alone in the endless, shifting Void. Mike ran his fingers down Martin’s chest, and the cardigan he’d been wearing disintegrated, along with the shirt underneath. Goosebumps rose on his chest, soothed away by the heat of Mike’s tongue. Strange that his tongue was so warm, when his lips were so cold.

Vines snaked over the edge of the bed, clasping his wrists, digging into his skin. And suddenly, Martin was afraid. This wasn’t what he’d intended coming here. It wasn’t something he could run from, nor something he could fight. Not that he was much of a fighter anyway. He gasped as Mike sucked on one of his nipples, then wandered lower still, tongue painting patterns on his stomach. 

“The book—” His trousers and pants fell away, and vines twisted around his ankles. “Do you have it?”

“Do you really care about the book that much?” He sounded curious, not angry or judgmental. 

“I need it for—” Mike’s hand wraps around his cock, fingers pressing into it but not moving. Waiting. “—for research.” 

“Very well.” Martin blinked, and Mike’s mouth was hovering over his cock. He wanted to cover his eyes, but his hand were entangled. And he couldn’t seem to stop watching. “I’ll give it to you. Is that all?”

His breath was humid, and close. This was wrong, all wrong. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t have agreed to this, no matter how much he wanted it. No matter if it was Fugue Feast. He’d gotten what he’d come for, what he was supposed to get. But then his gaze caught on Mike’s scar. In the strange, shifting light of the Void, it almost seemed to glow. Or no, was it the scar? In the distance, something shivered and shone, gone one moment and here the next. 

And it was getting closer.

The vines snapped, throwing Martin to his feet, his clothing restored to its previous state. Mike spun, back to Martin, and held up a hand. Beckoning, or barring? 

“No, not tonight. Not here.” His fingers curled and wove, and Martin took a step closer. Mike voice was high with panic, and sure, they’d only just met, but they were in this together.

“What do we do?” He placed a hand on Mike’s shoulder, then yanked it back, pain running down his arm.

“Don’t touch me!” His voice cracked. “Take the book, read it. It’s the only way you’re getting out alive.”

Reading a Leitner was never something Martin had considered, not after everything he’d heard. And yet the creature was getting closer. And it wasn’t alone. On the nightstand rested the battered book, and Martin reached for it, flipping to a page at random.

_Potterstead, Gristol: A small town, but the locals are charming and the ale is unmatched. Be certain to visit during the Month of Winds for their Pennant Festival._

He swayed on the spot, vertigo hitting him as he seemed to fall. But that couldn’t be right, he was still standing, even as the wind roared in his ears, and he heard the slap of cloth against wood. He shivered, and caught the scent of salt on the air. The creatures seemed to be fading now, and Mike along with them. Martin reached out to grab him, whether to stop his own fall, or to pull Mike along, he didn’t know. But he couldn’t move.

And then his feet hit the ground with a sickening crunch, and he screamed.

***

“Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 8731306, statement of Magda Curnow, given on the 13th day of the Month of Darkness, 1873.”

He took a deep breath. The statement had been waiting for him when he’d gotten back. Right on the top of the stack, right where he’d left it. A coincidence, and yet—he continued.

“They’re not dead, you know. Magnus and Foster. Everyone else is, that I’m sure of. But not them. 

“I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse. 

“I understand why my mother didn’t want me to go, now. But I can’t bring myself to regret it, or to regret using her connections to the Empress to get a spot on the expedition. I’m a botanist, you see, at the Academy of Natural Philosophy. Quite the prestigious position, you might say, for a woman with my background. And many people did say it. Just some street rat Miss Curnow scooped up. Always a soft one. And they also said it was pity, or just old fashioned nepotism, that got me my position. So you see why I had to go. I had to prove them wrong. 

“I found out about the expedition quite by accident. I’ve always been a bit nosy. It’s the only way to survive on the streets, and I’ve found academia to be similar in that regard. So when I noticed a letter left out on the dining table, written in the Empress’s cramped hand, I had to read it. My mother didn’t always tell me everything, and it never paid to be blindsided. 

“It was mostly inconsequential, the latest antics of the Crown Princess, and how the new chef at Dunwall Tower was working out. But halfway down, a name caught my eye. Jonah Magnus. She’d agreed to fund his expedition to the Pandyssian Continent. I owe him that, she wrote. And if anyone can survive it, he can. A thrill ran through me, and I dropped the letter. Perhaps if I’d read further, I would’ve known more. Could have prepared. But no. The Empress wouldn’t have given my mother the details. She may not have known them herself. And at the time, it all seemed so urgent.”

The audiograph began to shudder, and Martin quickly yanked the paper free. Another one ruined. Something about this statement, it wasn’t right. Not like the others. His eyes skimmed the paper, running past how Madga Curnow ended up on that ship, her strange meeting with the ship’s captain. And the increasingly gruesome deaths of all the other members of the voyage. He fed another paper into the audiograph, and watched as it flickered back to life. He licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry, and he read on to the end. 

“And then I was alone. Just me on that rickety old lifeboat, an oiled cloth heavy with books clutched to my chest. I opened it with shaking hands, and read the titles there. _Ports of Call. A Reflection on My Journey to the Pandyssian Continent. We Watch the Stars._ I tucked the latter two into my rucksack, and opened the first. I’m not sure why. Some last, desperate hope there’d be some clue as to what happened, something to take me home? But no. I think I knew, even then, that this book was different. My eyes caught on one section in particular. _Dunwall, Gristol: Notes on the capital city could fill a dozen such volumes. All delights exist in Dunwall if you’ve got the coin, and all miseries if you’re broke._

“You know what happened after that, so I won’t repeat it here. Take the books. I hope you burn them. I’m only glad I went so that I could tell you this. Jonah Magnus knew what he was getting himself into, but I don’t think the people around him did. If you’re smart, you’ll shutter this Institute, and leave the Void behind. There are some things better left a mystery, whatever you might want to see.”

He hadn’t understood, when he’d skimmed over it, in a box of mouldering old papers Jon thought might be of some use. He hadn’t really paid attention to how she’d gotten back to Dunwall, assumed the part she’d glossed over was a harrowing journey at sea. But now he knew what that book did.

And he had to find the others.

“Martin?” Basira poked her head through the doorway of the small room he was using for recording. “There’s someone here looking for you.” 

His hands shook as he turned the audiograph off, and he knew Basira saw it. But it didn’t matter. They all kept shooting him worried looks. Even Tim managed to look halfway concerned. But he knew he needed to finish whatever this was. And he knew who was waiting. 

“Send him—no, I’ll just go meet him.” He didn’t want to do this in the Institute. 

He grabbed his coat, and after a moment’s hesitation, tucked the book under one arm. Then he went to find out what Mike Crew had been up to these five months he’d been gone. 

***

“Strange place to meet.” He was as pleasant as he had been at their first encounter, honoring Martin’s strange request to head out into the countryside to talk. They’d spent the train ride exchanging small talk, while Martin tried hard not to think of how he’d last seen Mike, fending off some monster from the Void. Or about the moment before that, when he’d been about—

“But it’s for the best. Neither of us want others to overhear,” Mike said, his hand brushing against Martin’s waist as they trudged through the waving field of wheat to a small shack on the other side. It’d been abandoned, Martin knew, because the man who’d owned it was dead, and his brother couldn’t bear to sell it. A bit morbid, for certain. But Martin found he’d been willing to cross more and more lines lately. 

He expected that wouldn’t be the last line he’d cross today.

He jiggled the handle of the door, but it was locked. He shot Mike a nervous look. He hadn’t thought, well, at all. It’d been impulse, following him here. A hunch that this was the lead they needed, that Mike Crew, who was stalked by shifting, shining creatures and had found a way to the Void, might be the one who could lead them to the knife. And coming out here, well. Magda Curnow had been right about the Institute. 

“I think I forgot the key, sorry. We can just talk out here? I mean, the weather isn’t too bad.” As he said it, a rumble of thunder echoed in the distance, and Mike actually shifted closer to the building. Like he was afraid. 

“I have a better idea.” He frowned for a moment, then headed straight for a pile of firewood next to the door, shifting a log and pulling out a key that had been wedged inside a hollow. “Here we go.”

“How did you know that was there?” He clapped a hand over his mouth. A clear admission he’d been trying to break in, and what if Mike called the police? Admittedly not hugely likely, with his seeming proclivities, but Void worship had been legal for decades now, if still considered a bit eccentric. Breaking and entering, however, was still very much a crime.

“I have my ways,” he said, turning the key in the lock and pushing the door open. He didn’t say a word about the lapse. Maybe he didn’t care? Martin didn’t want to presume, but in his experience, the sort of person actively seeking out the supernatural tended to be fairly driven. He shouldn’t have worried. 

_More likely he’s going to kill you and feed you to the bloodflies_ , said a voice in his mind that sounded disconcertingly like Tim. But Martin shoved it away. He didn’t think Mike was a good man, exactly. But he’d had more than ample opportunity to do Martin harm. And he’d done far better than not hurt him. 

“Why did you do that? Tell me to read the book, that is,” Martin blurted out as Mike took a seat on a rickety chair.

“Did you want me to leave you to be consumed by the Envisioned?” He sounded genuinely curious, like that was actually an idea worth considering.

“No! No, I’m glad.” He wrung his hands, and considered his options for seating. The other chair was a mess, so he plopped down on the bed. “Well, arriving five months later wasn’t great.”

“Yes, I do wish I’d had the time to tell you to not read that section. It’s an unfortunate side effect, taking you to the Month of Winds. You’re lucky it only took you to the next month.” 

“Does it—no, it doesn’t matter. I don’t think I want to know.” Let someone else dig into that particular mystery, traveling through years, maybe even centuries. “I still don’t understand what you wanted.”

Mike laughed, and it was pleasant, like everything about him. But also somehow cold and empty and vast, like the whale song echoing throughout the Void. Martin shivered, and crossed his arms.

“One last human connection, before I go elsewhere.” He shrugged, then held a hand out to Martin. “I still wouldn’t mind that.”

Martin’s cheeks were hot, and he was glad for the fading light. It was barely innuendo. Tim would make fun of him for sure. But then Tim would think he was stupid for even coming here. Not like Tim’s way of doing things had gotten them much anyway. 

“But you can’t have come to find me just for, uh, that.” Oh, Outsider’s Eyes, he couldn’t be this inept, could he?

“Sex?” Mike laughed. “Hardly. Not that the thought isn’t appealing.”

“One last human connection?” Martin asked with a wry smile, and a nervous laugh.

“Exactly.” He considered Martin for a moment, pale eyes distant as the sky, then stood, coming to sit next to him on the bed. “I need a favor.”

There were a lot of questions Martin should ask. Why? What is it? Why should I do anything for you? Jon would’ve asked those questions and more, and Mike might have killed him for it. But Martin remembered the Void, and skittering figures there, and how Mike had saved him. So instead, he said, “Alright.”

Mike blinked, then let out a surprised laugh. “That’s really it, isn’t it? You’ll simply help me, like that.”

“You helped me before.” He hesitated, then added, “I think you can help me again.”

“So I can,” Mike said. “You’re far cleverer than many give you credit for.” 

“How—” Mike’s lips pressed against his, still chilled from outdoors, and the questions he was going to ask died in his throat. This was far more real than the Void, and all the more surreal for it. 

“Listen.”

Mike’s hands ran down his sides, shoving aside his baggy jumper and trousers, shoes and pants, and digging into his skin, marking his path in fractal patterns. 

“Listen,” Mike said again, almost desperate this time, so Martin closed his eyes and tried not to groan as Mike bit into his neck, teeth marking flesh. Something to remember him by, when he was gone. Because Martin had listened. Mike was leaving, and not just on holiday. He opened his eyes, reaching for spiking strands of hair, pulling Mike against him, tongue dragging down, lower and lower. He could almost hear the whalesong, a desperate moan as Mike swallowed him, sucking him deeper, hot and cold and electric. Impossible. Unreal. 

Dangerous.

There was a desperate speed in the way his head bobbed, tongue lapping at Martin’s cock, fingers pressing into his arse. A crackle in the air as the storm rolled in. They would follow, and Martin should want to flee, but he couldn’t, not with Mike holding him down and holding him up and holding him here. If he let go, he would fall. And then it wouldn’t matter if there were monsters coming to catch him. 

The first clap of thunder, and fingers pressing hard enough to bruise, crackling with energy and a heart stopping fear. There must be something wrong with him, because as Mike moaned around him, Martin came, holding him like the edge of a cliff. 

The window lit behind them. Mike met his eyes. They were both about to fall.

“Run.”

***

Brigmore Manor had been a ruin back in the time of Empress Emily I, and it had fared no better since then. There’d been the odd attempt to rehabilitate it. Martin had even read the statement of one assistant architect, who wrote about the singing she’d heard, that had driven the lead architect to divert wildly from the plan, tearing the manor apart to find some ancient relic. Like most statements, it’d ended badly, with the assistant finding her boss torn to pieces, a withered hound skull at her feed. That’d been twenty years ago, and no one had tried to enter Brigmore since. 

“You know the stories they tell about this place, right?” He shivered, hugging his jumper closer. He hadn’t brought a spare, and there was a tear up the side, caught on a nail as they’d fled.

“Surely you don’t believe such wild superstitions,” Mike said, his voice light and teasing. He’d been unfailingly polite the entire duration of their brief acquaintance, but today he was beyond that, positively gleeful at whatever he hoped to find here. The fear was gone as well, a weight lifted from his shoulders that had instead settled in the put of Martin’s stomach.

“I believe a lot, and that statement I read—” He cut himself off. Should he be telling Mike this?

“One of the real ones, I take it?” At Martin’s look of surprise, he said, “I’ve done a bit of study of your Archives. As much as anyone can.”

“Well, we do have records available to the public.”

“Records, certainly. But the Archives are something else entirely.” Mike held up a hand, so quickly Martin almost smacked into him. “Shh.”

Martin peered into the gloomy marsh that surrounded the manor. He heard the sound of insects, frogs, but nothing else. And nothing was moving. The only thing of interest seemed to be a hound skull, sat in the center of the wet lawn. If he squinted, it almost looked like it was glowing.

“We-we should avoid that.” There’d been a picture with the statement. And it sounded crazy, but Martin didn’t want to be another victim for Jon to file away. 

“Gravehounds,” Mike said. “You can kill them by smashing the skull, but it’s better to just avoid them. Unless you have martial skills you’ve yet to reveal?”

Martin laughed nervously. It seemed too loud, and yet also strangely muffled. “No, I’m more of a sit at home and watch TV on my laptop sort. Or well, I used to be.”

“I used to watch TV as well.” And for some reason, after everything else that had happened, it was that which struck Martin as unbearably alien. _Used_ to watch TV, not in the sense that he’d decided it was a waste of time, or that he’d given it up for his health. But in the sense that it simply no longer registered to him as a thing one could do, in the way Martin might say he used to play with toy cars. Mike had moved beyond. 

And Martin had never been more terrified.

“What—” The look Mike gave was icy cold, and Martin’s heart dropped. He corrected his course, instead said, “There has to be a lot of old things in here.” It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t a question. And he got the feeling Mike didn’t want to answer any more questions. 

“Yes. There’s an artifact I’m after, created by a powerful witch. There’s a chance it still holds some of that power, if the gravehounds are anything to go by.” He stopped as they reached the front door, long since caved in, one hand lingering on the frame. “My only chance.”

Without further explanation, he made his way inside, occasionally consulting a piece of paper tucked into his pocket. A map of some sort? Though who knew where he’d gotten it, and how he made any sense of it. The place was falling apart, all rotting wood and mouldering wallpaper. 

“We need to go up,” Mike said. But instead of heading for the stairs, he began to walk up some collapsed beams, moving into the ceiling.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I assume that’s rhetorical,” Mike said, and offered Martin his hand. 

With Mike’s help, be managed the ascent. Barely. They were in the crumbling remains of what had once been some sort of attic. As they made their way carefully along the floor, Martin noted the splashes of paint on the walls, and a few fallen paintbrushes. Some sort of art studio, then? 

In the corner he found a book, tossed aside ages ago, from the look of it. It seemed oddly well-preserved. Martin plucked it off the floor carefully, trying to see a title. But all it had was a strange symbol embossed on the handsome black leather. He traced the gold leaf, following the lines of a triangle, with a looping curve at its top and a line above that. He tucked it into his bag. Better to bring it back to the Institute, to have it examined. He was turning back Mike when he heard it.

Shifting, crackling stone, and a scream of rage and despair. 

Martin froze, eyes darting to where Mike was clutching the shattered remains of a lantern, and to the floor below, where the creature Mike called called the Envisioned was making its way towards them in stuttering spurts. It’d kill him for sure, but Mike had gotten him out last time. He had to have a plan.

“It won’t work without the lantern.” He threw it aside. The lantern slammed against the wall, shattering the remaining glass. 

“Is there another one?” Martin said hopefully. Mike stared at him with wild eyes, scrambling to his feet.

“There has to be. Help me look.” 

They dug through the remnants of old portraits and the rotted leavings of old meals, Mike tossing items aside at random, Martin searching with equal speed and fear. He didn’t know what Mike wanted with this thing, but he certainly wasn’t getting out any other way. He tried to ignore the sounds of the thing getting ever closer, moving slowly now, like it knew they had nowhere to run. He tore aside a drop cloth with shaking hands, and—there.

“I have it!” It was intact. He hoped it was what Mike needed. He carried to over to him, and when Mike saw it, his expression changed to something like fear. “Is this not it?”

“No, that’s it.” He took the lantern from Martin, setting it on a small table next to an easel. After a moments fumbling, he lit it, and set a book on the stand.

“We Watch the Stars.” Mike smiled at Martin. “You can take it, when I’m gone. Just be careful.”

“Wait, gone? Gone where?” He’d known, last night. But it had seemed like a dream, dispelled in the light of day. Then he’d believed Mike, that he was telling the truth. But now it seemed impossible. 

“Listen to me. When I’m gone, I need you to close the book, and blow out the lantern. No matter what.”

“I—what will happen to you?”

“No more questions. Promise me.” To Martin’s surprise, he stepped closer, pressing a kiss against Martin’s mouth. And for once, his lips were warm. 

“I promise.”

At the sound of shattering wood, Martin spun around. The Envisioned. He backed away towards the wall, and wondered if Mike would live to give a statement about him. He heard scratching, and then something seemed to shift. The Envisioned looked away from Martin, and back at Mike. 

“The night’s sky foretold the necessity of the Outsider, and urged the Envisioned to seek out the wretch who would become him.” Mike was reciting the words, seemingly from memory. Martin knew they were the words from that book, though the page behind him held only a blank night sky. And then suddenly, the Envisioned was there. But Mike kept speaking.

“It is not simply the movement of these distant stars, but when they blink out into nothingness that tells us what the Void requires.” His voice rose on the last word, taking on a panicked edge. And then he was gone.

And a moment later, so was the Envisioned. 

Working on instinct and adrenaline, Martin scrambled for the book, slamming it shut, then blowing out the lantern. Should he leave it? Shatter it? Take it with? He picked it up to examine it, and saw a scrap of paper drift to the floor.

_You know where to find the knife. Catch me if you can._

_-Mike_

Martin took the lantern and smashed it against the floor. 

***

“He won’t find it, you know. Your friend with the lightning scar.” 

The Void, but it was less real this time, echoing with unnerving laughter. And Martin wasn’t alone. In his hands he clutched a book, and the missing pages of the statement of Magda Curnow.

“I think—” He shivered as razor sharp fingers grazed his throat. “I think he will. And that’s why you need me to go after him.”

The creature that had once been so much like him smiled, and Martin?

Martin watched the stars.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Ports of Call_ appears in The Brigmore Witches, _A Reflection on My Journey to the Pandyssian Continent_ appears in Dishonored 2, and _We Watch the Stars_ appears in Death of the Outsider.


End file.
